22 July 2021
Media: Local Democracy Reporter
Topic: Blue Baths closure
Enquiry
As you'll know I did a LGOIMA request for documents and communications regarding the Blue Baths closure. (This LGOIMA response is available on Council’s website HERE.)
I have some queries arising from the response.
Can the council get back to me with a response to these by 1.45 pm today please.
- Why did the council not complete a geotechnical assessment after the 2012 Sigma Consultants earthquake assessment? It appears this was put off until at least 2019 - is that correct and if so why was this?
- The Sigma Blue Baths earthquake assessment also doesn't appear to be as detailed as a Detailed Seismic Assessment [I have a copy of the Sigma report]. Why did the council not procure a DSA at this time?
- What does the council consider to be the main factors for the NBS rating change from 2012 to 2021?
- Does the council believe water leakage (as alleged in Copeland's letter) played any role in the earthquake rating of the building? If so, how?
- How would the council describe its current working relationship with BBEL?
- What is the next step for the building? Is the council investigating how to restore the building?
Comments for right of reply:
- BBEL, through Mark Copeland's letter, makes several allegations about the council's maintenance (or lack thereof) of the building, and claims the council ignored the tenant raising these issues. What is the council's response to these claims? (Of course the council has this letter but for your convenience I have extracted the bits about maintenance).
- Copeland's letter also makes some other critical comments of the council which were not necessarily directly addressed by the council's reply through Tomkins Wake - I've popped them below for the council to respond to too, but feel free to respond to anything the council perceives as critical in Copeland's letter.
- Jo Romanes (it's redacted in the LGOIMA but she has confirmed this to me) also made some comments in some emails surrounding a media release the council drafted in February. I'd like to invite the council to respond to these (I've also popped below for convenience).
Mark Copeland letter:
"For at least the last 12 years BBEL has raised with RLC on many occasions the fact of urgent owner maintenance required for the Blue Baths building.
"This includes the need for urgent deferred maintenance on leaking balconies, leaking pools and broken-down water pipes ... RLC has ignored BBEL's requests and none of this important maintenance has been carried out.
"The lack of any material maintenance by RLC led directly to BBEL's (reluctant) decision in June 2020 to permanently close the Blue Baths pools due to their run down and shabby state.
“With [the] council’s encouragement and full knowledge, for the last 24 months BBEL has had a number of expert engineers and other relevant professionals crawling all over the … buildings.
“Not once … have material concerns been raised about potential earthquake instability or related risks … nowhere have they warned that the Blue Baths present an imminent injury or life-threatening risk.”
The council “has now seen fit to unilaterally commission an initial seismic assessment” and “accept without question” the advice received, and “immediately close” the building.
Copeland said this was despite the council having the report since late December, and there being no law compelling closure based on the 15 per cent rating from the initial seismic assessment.
The closure was without thought about the council’s relationship to the Blue Baths or the commercial impact on the company, he said.
Copeland also said there had been “lip-service” efforts to help Blue Baths find alternative premises.
“BBEL considers these actions … to be peremptory, unjustified, unconscionable and bad faith behaviour by the council.”
Jo Romanes
[Feb 23] She had, via her lawyer, sent a letter to Williams on February 12 “addressing concerns over Rotorua Lakes Council’s handling of this current fiasco and its effect on my business”, and that she had not heard back.
“On that basis alone, I think it is completely inappropriate - and unnecessary - to send out something as potentially harmful as this statement to the public.
“I do not want my name or my business’ name mentioned in it, or any referral to Rotorua Lakes Council’s assistance to help Blue Baths Establishment Limited find an alternative venue.
“Let’s be clear - you insisted on as close to immediate eviction as we could physically manage, and the fleeting ‘investigated alternative venues with [redacted]’ was tokenism at best.
“It most certainly was not that - as the mayor said to me ‘we gave you a week to get out and offered you the Energy Events Centre.’ That’s absolute rubbish.
“The detailed seismic assessment, under your own timeline, is only days away … so why would you put out something so damaging now, that could well be nullified in a few days’ time?”
She said she had “real concerns” about the council’s management “not being honest and transparent” with her business regarding a Request For Proposal process.
“The current farcical situation only adds weight to this perception.”
She then quotes the drafted media release, which quotes Mikaere saying the council had “no choice” but to close the Blue Baths’ doors.
“This statement is plain wrong [and] misleading” Romanes wrote in the email, quoting the EQStruc report back to the council which stated the building was not considered a life safety threat.
“These are important issues, not just to me but to all Rotorua ratepayers. The council management should be clear that they cannot quietly sweep them under the carpet. I / Blue Baths Establishment Limited will hold them to account.”
Additional comments from - Jo Romanes:
[asked why BBEL did not produce the DSA as indicated in the Tomkins Wake letter in the LGOIMA]
"I am not sure at exactly what point there was miscommunication with RLC about what reporting I had commissioned but I suspect it stemmed from me not being as familiar with the terminology as I should have been, in those earlier stages of the project.
"My team did not feel it was necessary – or indeed our role – to produce a DSA when a) we were still just making a proposal for the revitalisation of the Blue Baths b) as the 2012 Sigma report was reasonably current, and did not signal any concerns, besides the fact that it was based on the building sitting on “good ground” c) our intention was that, if the project did go ahead, then primarily because of the increased capacity of pax in the building (1000) that would trigger the necessity of substantial seismic upgrade to the building, so this would be dealt with when designing began in earnest.
"The thought from my team of experts was that the ground, while probably not “good” did not pose any new issues, the BB has always been sited on geothermal ground. And the building was designed to sit on top of it. Upon initial site assessment by my team, there was no reason to suspect that the ground had changed, or that the building was structurally vulnerable.
"But because in June 2019 RLC advised me that they now had reservations about the 95% NBS in Sigma’s report, and advised that I should cease work on the revitalisation plans while they undertook further investigations, I decided to commission a more comprehensive Geotech assessment myself.
"As it seemed to be the ground they were concerned about, not the building itself. (**I had already engaged several consultancy firms, having been given a green light by RLC to pursue the plans to revitalise the building a few months prior - and a limited time frame to produce results - so it wasn’t practical to just call everyone off. And meanwhile, though we were still paying rent, it was very difficult to utilise the building for events, given its run down state and lack of certainty over tenure, so we needed to progress the project).
"I may have mistakenly referred to this Geotech assessment as being a DSA. Our Geotech report was peer reviewed and released to me Feb 2020. It did not raise any new concerns about the ground beneath the building. I shared this report with RLC, October 2020. It is the state of the foundations that is the (new) issue. And this is primarily what is driving the low DSA. My team was not expecting the foundations to be in that state. We do not believe that the solution is that difficult, but it will take good design and several million dollars to resolve.
[Question: “Do you believe the council's alleged failure to rectify these issues contributed to the worsened NBS rating between 2012 and 2021?”]
"Yes I do absolutely believe that. Eg. the oxidised concrete under the balconies, with exposed rusting reinforcing, and water dripping through, was there for even the public to see, for years – and many of them commented on it when visiting the pools to swim. It's mentioned in the report, and that’s just in the places you can see, let alone under the building – where there was clearly water ponding there for years - tradesmen hated working under the building, often having to don a wet suit to combat the mud."
[“How would you describe the current working relationship between BBEL and RLC?”]
"Strained."
Response
FromCouncil’s DCE - Community Wellbeing, Jocelyn Mikaere:
Why did the council not complete a geotechnical assessment after the 2012 Sigma Consultants earthquake assessment? It appears this was put off until at least 2019 - is that correct and if so why was this?
Assessments were completed in 2012 across all council buildings and the Blue Baths assessment indicated the building was meeting 95-100% NBS. The report also stated that confirmation of the condition of the ground under the building was an essential prerequisite of this classification. There is no evidence that ground testing was conducted after this report was received. Staffing changes since 2012 mean we are unable to speak directly to decisions made about this at that time.
When BBEL was looking to undertake renovations within the Blue Baths in 2019, based on our recent experience with the Rotorua Museum and Sir Howard Morrison Performing Arts Centre, and because it hadn’t been done following the 2012 assessment, Council requested a DSA be completed prior to any works beginning.
The Sigma Blue Baths earthquake assessment also doesn't appear to be as detailed as a Detailed Seismic Assessment [I have a copy of the Sigma report]. Why did the council not procure a DSA at this time?
As above.
What does the council consider to be the main factors for the NBS rating change from 2012 to 2021?
The main factors for the current NBS rating are highlighted in the Tonkin & Taylor DSA report.
Does the council believe water leakage (as alleged in Copeland's letter) played any role in the earthquake rating of the building? If so, how?
Moisture damage is sited in the DSA as a contributing factor, among many others.
How would the council describe its current working relationship with BBEL?
BBEL is a tenant of Council’s and we have a professional working relationship with them.
What is the next step for the building? Is the council investigating how to restore the building?
Council’s engineers are investigating options for the building.
Regarding comments for right of reply:
The health and safety of our community is a priority, and Council takes its responsibility for public safety very seriously.
Council does not make decisions to close buildings lightly.
This is the same position we took in making decisions to close the Rotorua Museum and Sir Howard Morrison Performing Arts Centre.
We continue to work with the leaseholder in good faith throughout this process.
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Media: Rotorua Daily Post
Topic: Kawaha Point Rd speed humps
Enquiry
I've received feedback from a member of the public which states the speed bumps on Kawaha Pt Road are still over 100mm tall.
This has prompted the following questions. We would appreciate it if you could respond to these questions before 2pm today:
- What steps has the contractor taken to lower the speed bumps?
- How long did these measures take, which roads were affected, and how long were contractors working on it?
- Which is the council's contractor for these works?
- Who sets the speed bump standard height? What factors contribute to determining this standard?
- Has there been extra cost incurred by filing the speed bumps down?
Response
Please see info below in response to your questions. You can attribute this to Stavros Michael, DCE Infrastructure & Environment & Primary CDEM Controller –
- What steps has the contractor taken to lower the speed bumps?
The contractor followed a process of measuring the height difference between the road surface and the apex of the hump that is curved. Where the apex height was higher than 100 mm a rotomilling machine was used to trim back to the specified height of 100mm. - How long did these measures take, which roads were affected, and how long were contractors working on it?
Two roads – Kawaha Point Rd and Ford Rd. The corrections on the humps took about two days to complete. - Which is the council's contractor for these works?
Waiotahi Contractors Bay Of Plenty NZ - Who sets the speed bump standard height? What factors contribute to determining this standard?
There are national and regional infrastructure guidelines for the application of speed control measures. For each location there are local adjustments made as required but broadly the national guidelines are followed regarding design specifications. - Has there been extra cost incurred by filing the speed bumps down?
Not to council. The contractor has an obligation to build things to specified design and if they need to carry out adjustments then it is at their cost
*Re question 4 you will likely need to speak to Waka Kotahi NZ Transport Agency about the guidelines for speed control measures and what factors contribute to determining the standards.